Pastoral Letters for the Feast of St Joseph the Worker

2007 - Keeping Time: Australian families and the culture of overwork - download PDFWord I heard a story recently that shocked me. It is of a family finding it hard to manage the demands of paid work on family time. The husband holds down multiple jobs, working all hours of the day and night and travelling from one side of town to another. The wife is also very busy caring for the six children they love dearly.

2005 - The Minimum Wage in an Age of Prosperity and Wealth - download PDFWord This pastoral letter marks the Feast of St Joseph the Worker – a day on which we acknowledge the importance of work in the lives of individuals and their families. This day coincides with the Living Wage claim of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), currently before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). The day is also celebrated at a time when far-reaching policy reforms are being proposed that hold implications for low paid, unemployed and underemployed workers who are seeking a fair and just wage.

2004 - The human costs behind the official unemployment rate - Download PDFWord This pastoral letter marks the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, which we celebrate in an environment of apparent prosperity and wealth. For many Australians these are bountiful times; unemployment, we are officially told, is now at its lowest since 1981. It has even been suggested that Australia is within reach of full employment.

2002 -Casual work: the costs of flexibility - download PDFWord As we celebrate the Feast of St Joseph the Worker we can be conscious of the advantages of increased flexibility in the labour force, but we should also be aware that sometimes this flexibility comes at a cost to workers and their families.